We have now arrived at a period in the history of
furniture which is confused, and difficult to arrange
and classify. From the end of the fourteenth
century to the Renaissance is a time of transition,
and specimens may be easily mistaken as being of an
earlier or later date than they really are. M.
Jacquemart notices this “gap,” though he
fixes its duration from the thirteenth to the fifteenth
century, and he quotes as an instance of the indecision
which characterised this interval, that workers in
furniture were described in different terms; the words
coffer maker, carpenter, and huchier (trunk-maker)
frequently occurring to describe the same class of
artisan.
It is only later that the word “menuisier,”
or joiner, appears, and we must enter upon the period
of the Renaissance before we find the term “cabinet
maker,” and later still, after the end of the
seventeenth century, we have such masters of their
craft as Riesener described as “ebenistes,”
the word being derived from ebony, which, with other
eastern woods, came into use after the Dutch settlement
in Ceylon. Jacquemart also notices the fact that
as early as 1360 we have record of a specialist, “Jehan
Petrot,” as a “chessboard maker.”
[Illustration: Interior of An Apothecary’s
Shop. Late XIV. or Early XV. Century.
Flemish. (From an Old Painting.)]
[Illustration: Court of the Ladies of Queen Anne
of Brittany. (From a Miniature in the Library of
St. Petersburg) Representing the Queen weeping
on account of her Husband’s absence during the
Italian War. Period: XV. Century.]
Chapter III.
The Renaissance.
THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY: Leonardo
da Vinci and Raffaele—Church of St. Peter,
contemporary great artists—The Italian Palazzo—Methods
of gilding, inlaying and mounting Furniture-Pietra-dura
and other enrichments—Ruskin’s
criticism. THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE: Francois
I. and the Chateau of Fontainebleau—Influence
on Courtiers, Chairs of the time—Design
of Cabinets—M.E. Bonnaffe on The Renaissance,
Bedstead of Jeanne d’Albret—Deterioration
of taste in time of Henry IV., Louis XIII.
Furniture—Brittany woodwork. THE RENAISSANCE
IN THE NETHERLANDS: Influence of the House
of Burgundy on Art—The Chimney-piece at
Bruges, and other casts of specimens at South Kensington
Museum. THE RENAISSANCE IN SPAIN: The
resources of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries—Influence of Saracenic Art, high-backed
leather chairs, the Carthusian Convent at Granada.
THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY: Albrecht Duerer—Famous
Steel Chair of Augsburg—German seventeenth
century carving in St. Saviour’s Hospital.
THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND: Influence of Foreign
Artists in the time of Henry VIII.—End of
Feudalism—Hampton Court Palace—Linen
pattern Panels—Woodwork in the Henry
VII. Chapel at Westminster Abbey—Livery
Cupboards at Hengrave—Harrison quoted—the
Copyrights
Illustrated History of Furniture from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
